What went wrong for Hillary Clinton

How upstart Obama derailed once-inevitable Clinton

By Richard Dunham |
June 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — On Dec. 5, the Chicago Tribune, Barack Obama's hometown paper, reported that new polls showing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton far ahead of the Illinois senator in the key swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania made her nomination look "inevitable."

The Tribune's "Swamp" blog declared that "the conclusion drawn by the polling experts appears to be: Forget about Iowa being close, Clinton's inevitable, she's going to be the Democratic nominee."

A funny thing happened on the way to the coronation. A charismatic young upstart with soaring rhetoric and a compelling life story became the Democrats' candidate of destiny, and December's inevitable nominee became the eventual loser.

"We haven't seen something this big go down since the Titanic," Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College, said of Clinton's campaign.

"This is an epic of mistakes and misallocation of resources."

So what happened to the presumptive winner? Here are some key things that went wrong for Clinton:

• Barack Obama happened. The Clinton campaign brain trust had painted her as the trailblazer in the 2008 Democratic field, a battle-tested political veteran who had survived for two decades against the Republican attack machine.

"She wasn't prepared for Barack Obama," said pollster John Zogby. "She was going to be the historic figure and the charismatic figure in the race. Then Obama became electric and charismatic and appealed directly to the constituents that Hillary thought would be hers: young people and African-Americans and the college-educated, for starters."

Obama emerged from the second tier to take the lead in Iowa. He soon muscled former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., from the race and consolidated the substantial anti-Clinton primary vote.

• She mistakenly planned for an earlyknockout. Because of her record-breaking early fundraising and the front-loaded primary schedule, Clinton and her top strategists thought that they would have the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday, Feb. 5. She said as much when she appeared on ABC's This Week on Dec. 30, 2007.

"I'm in it for the long run," she told host George Stephanopoulos. "It's not a very long run. It'll be over by Feb. 5."

The result was a colossal miscalculation: Clinton spent every penny she had raised by Super Tuesday. She had little organization in the states that followed and was outspent by more than 4-to-1 by Obama. He won 11 contests in a row, most of them caucuses, and Clinton never caught up.

• African-American voters quickly coalesced behind Obama, something Clinton had not expected. Two months before South Carolina's January primary, Clinton was far ahead of Obama among African-American voters. But after Obama won in nearly all-white Iowa, more and more black voters decided that he was a viable candidate. The African-American vote catapulted Obama to victory in states across the South. "Getting (overwhelming) black support buoyed him through a lot of primaries," said Schier.

• She didn't count on a tidal wave for change. Clinton touted her 35 years of experience. But voters were looking for change, not experience. Polls showed that about three in five Democrats were more interested in change than experience, and about three-fourths of those favored Obama over Clinton.

• She didn't settle on a successful political "persona" — the working-class battler — until late in the campaign. By then it was too late to overcome the delegate edge Obama built in February. "Sybil had only 15 personalities," said Zogby. "There were too many different Hillarys in too many states — and many did not seem genuine." When Clinton finally found an approach that worked, it was too late.

• Bill Clinton's controversial comments convinced people that it was time for an end to the Clinton-Bush dual dynasty. Democrats strongly approve of Bill Clinton's job performance, but they also strongly want change. After seven consecutive presidential elections featuring a Clinton or a Bush on the ballot, many Democrats are looking for a fresh face.

• She couldn't deliver organized labor. With organized labor splintered, Clinton could not unite the feuding factions of the old AFL-CIO. "She wound up on one side of the split instead of being the one thing the two houses of labor could agree on," said pollster Thom Riehle. The former first lady's failure to dominate union endorsements was particularly costly in the caucus states, where labor leaders help to turn out the rank-and-file.

• Sexism happened. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, an Obama supporter, concedes that Clinton faced some sexism in the electorate and in the media. Stories discussed her hair, her clothes, her emotions "and all the stuff that's irrelevant," McCaskill said.

"Racism and sexism are alive and well," said McCaskill. But she said Clinton's unsuccessful campaign "has shown America that a woman can campaign for president."